


this work is doomed to be incomplete

by everybodyknowseverybodydies



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Princess and the Goblin AU take one, because I'm rewriting it totally, explained in the notes but this is INCOMPLETE FOREVER, only sort of Usagi?? it's hard to explain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowseverybodydies/pseuds/everybodyknowseverybodydies
Summary: exactly what it says on the tin, sorry





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if you've been around on the art blog a bit you might have seen some doodles for this AU. unfortunately I got 18k into it and then realized I wanted to change a Major Aspect that would mean... scrapping what I had totally and starting completely over. but I didn't just want to leave all that hard work in the dust so I figured I might as well... put what I did here while I suffer through school and try to find time to write for myself ever again. THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A COMPLETED ENDING TO THIS VERSION if that bothers you this is not the place to be

There was something about the princess that bothered the nurse. It wasn’t anything terribly concerning—she was sweet, and thoughtful, and had a good heart—but she said the oddest things sometimes. The nurse brought in her tea one afternoon, for example, a short while after the rain had stopped, and there was the girl, staring out the window with that strange, alert, sort of dreamy look on her face that she wore so often, and said as though she didn’t realize she was speaking aloud, “Doesn’t it seem so much brighter after it rains, just like the sun has washed his face?”

When the nurse came over to steer her away from the window, the reminder that she wasn’t supposed to go near the windows ready in her mouth, she turned a pair of startled blue eyes to her, getting up from the window seat with a hurried apology and the beginning of an explanation. The nurse shook her head. “What am I to do with you, child?” She put her hands on the narrow shoulders and sighed. “No, not a child. If _only_.”

“I’m sorry,” Ami said gently. “I don’t know of any way to prevent aging. Is it really as terrible as you say it is?”

The nurse thought of the letter the queen had left with her all those years ago and did not answer. She went instead to close the window, and she said only, “Take your tea, child, before it gets cold now.” 

* * *

 

Ami waited until the nurse had gone to sit on the floor, pulling out the crate of books from under her bed, some that had been given to her over the years and some that had been sneaked in by visitors without the nurse’s awareness. There was very little written on the things she really wanted to know ( _why is everyone so afraid of telling me the truth? What is out there in the dark? Why does the house have a second and third floor from the outside, but only a first floor and a cellar from the inside?_ ), and quite a lot written on the things she had learned in her general studies ( _A Condensed History of the Last Hundred Years, Atlas of the World, Electricity: An Experimental New Discovery in Science)_. Still, she liked to think there might be answers somewhere that didn’t involve the nurse’s reproachful circumlocution.

The closest she had come so far to an answer was the brief mention in the history book about the unexplained mining accidents that tended to happen during the long winter nights—miners that went missing, leaving their helmets and pickaxes and shoes behind; cave-ins that seemed to be caused intentionally; and then, of course, the “attacks,” which had no more detail than what the word itself suggested. She couldn’t find anything about who the attackers were, what kind of attacks these were, or even who had been attacked and where, no matter how many times she read and reread the book (and she’d nearly lost count of how many times that was by now).

She looked up at the dying strains of the sunset peeking through the curtains and closed the books back one by one, thinking herself back around to the same unsatisfying conclusion she always reached. If there was something out there in the dark—and she couldn’t think of anything to suggest there wasn’t—then the nurse’s paranoia was well-intentioned—and she believed it was—so she shouldn’t, then, ask too many questions.

This reasoning did not make the questions go away. Ami pushed the crate back under her bed and crawled under the sheets, staring at the patterns on the ceiling until they faded into sleep. 

* * *

 

The nurse stood vigilantly by the path, keeping a wary eye out for any unsanctioned movement, despite the high noon sun overhead. Ami was a little ways from the path, lying on her stomach with a magnifying glass to study a little iridescent chrysalis she’d found a few days ago. The nurse was less concerned with this, as she never wandered off alone, and more concerned with the miner coming up the path from the valley.

As the miner approached, the nurse realized it was a girl. She was whistling off-key and had her pickax slung over one shoulder as though it were significantly lighter than it looked. When she was close enough for the nurse to make out more distinct features, and to recognize her as the miner girl who always came by to exchange a greeting, she stopped whistling long enough to smile and nod. “Hello,” she said.

The nurse did not respond. “Hello!” came the bright answer from the flower patch off the path. Ami sat up with a smile.

The miner girl looked surprised at first, but then laughed at the sight of the princess sprawled in the grass with a glass in her hand and wildflowers twisted into her short hair. The nurse feared she would say something rude, but all she said was, “Nice day. See you tomorrow,” and then the miner girl was whistling tunelessly again as she continued up the mountain, red-brown ponytail swinging behind her.

Ami looked after her delightedly. “Oh,” she said.

The nurse gave a disgruntled sound and frowned at the princess, who was not paying attention to her at all. “ _Oh_ ,” she said.

“Why haven’t we ever gone up the mountain?” Her interested gaze was still fixed on the retreating shape of the miner. “Isn’t the brook much more accessible up there?”

“You are not going up the mountain,” the nurse admonished. “There is nothing of interest up there, child.”

“Isn’t there?” Ami murmured curiously, that strange dreamy alertness creeping over her expression again.

The nurse worried very suddenly for her princess and her position, and resolved to make sure the miners did not take this path any longer. 

* * *

 

This time, before they had come back inside, Ami had seen something in the window of the elusive third floor—it had looked like a light, though she had thought very briefly that it might have been a face. Whatever it might have been, it was definitely proof that _something_ interesting was up there, which was why she was tip-toeing through the halls now that everyone had gone to bed, one hand on the wall beside her. She followed the wall as quietly as she could, thinking to find a loose panel that might hide a stair, but it was in the main hall near the door that the wall disappeared behind a tapestry—no loose panel, or a puzzle to solve it open. She had been almost hoping for the challenge of a secret lock of some kind, but supposed that this was very good too.

She ducked behind the tapestry and started up the stairs, bare feet silent on the smooth stone steps. When she reached the top where it opened into a long hall, she stopped. A row of doors lined both sides of the hallway, each exactly the same as the next, and the hall ended abruptly in a high window. It was completely empty besides.

What could all of these doors be _for_ , Ami wondered, reaching for the knob of the first one. It couldn’t be living quarters; the only people who lived here besides herself were the nurse, the housekeeper, and the cook, and all their rooms were on the ground floor. She pushed open the door and leaned in.

Nothing. Nothing at all. She exhaled, closing the door back with more questions than she started with, and moved to check the next one. Then the next. Then the next, then the next… She reached the end of the hallway full of empty rooms and turned to stare back at the way she’d come at a loss, her shadow stretching out before her to the other end of the hall. What was the point of having a second floor made up of a single hallway entirely dedicated to rooms with nothing in them? And no sign of a way to get to the third floor either. There _had_ to be something she was missing, she thought as she made her way back to the stairs.

Ami halted abruptly, thoughts slamming to a stop at the same time as her feet. The stairs were just right here, weren’t they? Yes, they were; the solid stone walls didn’t curve—she couldn’t have gotten lost.

So where had the stairs gone?

She turned around. There was a gap by the door opposite her that hadn’t been there before, she was positive. Taking a hesitant step forwards, she spied the beginnings of a spiral staircase, ascending.

It wasn’t as if she could go down, she thought, so up it would have to be. Ami straightened her shoulders and started up the stairs, the stone tile cold under her bare feet. Wherever she was going, there didn’t seem to be a light at the top of the stairs, which wasn’t very promising—but when she reached the end, she found herself confronted with an imposing-looking door made of wood and carved with an intricate pattern of roses and constellations.

She turned and looked down the way she’d come, then back at the door, and knocked.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hello?” a pleasant voice called from beyond the door as soon as she knocked. “Is that you?”

Ami, not entirely sure if the ‘you’ in question was meant to be her or if whoever was there was expecting someone, took an awkward step back from the door, her hand still frozen in midair. She wet her lips and tried to find her voice. “Ah… I don’t know?”

Laughter answered her, and then the door swung open to reveal a smiling woman in a white dress, her long, silvery hair tied up in two pigtails. “You don’t know? Oh, it is you! Hello!”

Her face had an ageless quality to it that was vaguely disorienting; from this angle she looked about the same age as Ami, but from another she looked far older despite her smooth skin, in this light she looked like a child, but she had only to move or turn her head and she was so clearly a full-grown woman that it hurt to try to compare the memory of her only seconds before to now. Ami blinked and took another step back in surprise, remembering the stairs too late. The stranger caught her by the hands before her startled yelp had even finished ringing off the walls, though, and gave her a brilliant smile.

“Careful! It’s okay, I do that all the time,” she confided. “Anyway, I’ve been waiting for you! Well, kind of. I’m not done yet. But that’s okay, because now you can keep me company while I make it!”

“Make what?” Ami heard herself say, following the stranger cautiously into the open room behind the door. It felt much bigger than it ought to be, but very cozy, like someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it feel like home. There was a spinning wheel, and several plush chairs, and a fireplace with a dying fire—no, she realized, it was a bouquet of roses. Which were on fire. Or made of fire? Looking at it was starting to hurt her eyes.

“Your present, of course,” the stranger responded matter-of-factly, sitting down beside the spinning wheel and gesturing to the chair beside her.

She sat down slowly, feeling slightly disoriented, and asked, “Who… are you? Have you always been up here? How did you get here?”

Laughing, the stranger held up to the light a silvery thread, so fine it was hard to see. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m your friend, I suppose is the easiest answer. I haven’t always been here, of course; that would be silly.” She smiled brightly and returned to spinning. Her fingers moved dexterously over the thread as she talked. “And I got here like you did, through the door.”

“But—?”

“I’ll answer everything I can, but I don’t really have a lot to say about myself,” she told Ami with an apologetic shrug, silvery-blonde hair shifting across her shoulders with the movement. “Anything else though, go ahead.”

Ami opened her mouth, then closed it again, suddenly too full of questions to know where to start. The stranger laughed as she struggled to find words. The memory of the miner girl’s amused crooked grin suddenly presented itself, and she blurted, “The mountain—what’s up the mountain?”

“A mine,” she said, eyebrows lifting. “And miners, usually.”

“But… that can’t really be all?”

“There’s the civilization inside the mountain, of course.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Is this a trick question?”

“There’s a civilization _inside the mountain_?” Ami sat up straighter, eyes wide. “What—who lives there?”

“They haven’t told you that? Oh, dear.” Her expression changed to something unreadable.

She scooted the chair closer, leaning forward. “No, no—please, tell me,” she said, “who lives there? Why do they live inside the mountain? Do they get along alright with the miners?”

“Well,” the stranger tilted her head, “not really; they aren’t really fond of the miners because the more mining that happens the deeper into the mountain they have to move. They live there because they can’t bear the light of the sun.”

“Why not?” she wanted to know. “Do they have sensitive eyes? Who are they?”

The stranger looked up to the mantle over the fireplace, where a mirrored clock ticked quietly, and hummed in thought. “Oh… that’s something I think you’ll find out very soon.”

“What does that m—?”

“Ami,” she stood up abruptly, turning to look at her with a smile, silhouetted in the moonlight through the window, “you ought to go back down now. Please come see me again, won’t you? I’m sorry, but they’re going to be waking up soon, and it’s important to sleep!”

Ami scrambled to her feet in confusion. “But—”

The stranger grabbed her hands, earnest. “It’s okay! You’ll be able to find me again, don’t worry. Promise you’ll come back? I’ll try to have it finished for you when you come see me again!”

“Have _what_ finished?” The stranger was steering her back to the door, and the stone floor was a cold shock under her feet after the soft rug of the room. She twisted around, trying to stay, but the stranger was insistent. “What do you mean, I’ll find out very soon? Who _are_ you?”

Her smile was radiant, and her blue eyes twinkled like stars. Ami grabbed onto the banister and stared up at her in bewilderment. “I’m your friend,” she said, and then the beautiful wooden door closed and Ami was left with her head full of the mountain and miners and spinning wheels.

* * *

When the nurse came into the princess’s room in the morning, she was surprised to find her still asleep, short hair a tangled mess, one arm slung over her head. She came to the side of the bed, pulling back the covers with a sigh. “Good morning, child.”

Sleepy eyes blinked open slowly. “…good morning.” She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and yawned, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep this late… have I missed breakfast?”

“No, not at all.” The nurse ruffled her hair and went to open the curtains.

“Are we going outside today?”

“To check on your chrysalis again? We can.”

“I—yes. Yes.”

There was a wavering note in her voice that drew the nurse’s suspicion. She remembered how the miner girl had piqued her interest, yet again, and the nurse resolved to be as distracting as possible to prevent any of _that_. “You must let me know how it’s doing.”

“Of course.” The princess was already half-dressed, tying the wide ribbon around her waist hurriedly and finger-combing her hair. “Can we—”

“Now, honestly, child,” she scolded, “you haven’t even eaten yet. We won’t leave until you’ve had breakfast.”

In this manner, the nurse was successfully able to prevent them leaving the house until shortly after noon, much to the princess’s obvious agitation. Really, though, it was for the best; there would be no reason to run into any miners at this time of day, and it was with that thought that the nurse allowed herself to be dragged outside and up the path.

“Don’t forget your glass,” she began, but the princess held up her magnifying glass without turning around and tucked it back into her pocket, tense with impatience. “Is it supposed to hatch today?”

“It—well, today or tomorrow, if I’ve got the species right.” She let go of the nurse’s arm when they reached the slight bend in the path, going to sit in her usual spot. Now that they were here, she seemed less fidgety, and the nurse wondered if perhaps she had been mistaken.

She looked up to the mountain. There were no scurrying black shapes of miners like ants coming down from the mines or going up to them. The princess seemed perfectly content sitting in the grass studying the creature crawling out of the little chrysalis. Yes, she thought; she had been mistaken after all.

“Oh!”

The nurse turned back to the princess, who was scrambling to her feet. “What? What is it?”

“The butterfly!” She took off suddenly up the mountain. A bright, silvery butterfly was doing a dizzying set of spirals ahead of her. “Wait—!”

“Ami!” The nurse hiked up her skirts, chasing after her. “What are you doing?”

“It’s going somewhere!”

Huffing and puffing, the nurse caught up with her when the butterfly paused, and was about to reprimand her for running off like that when the butterfly shook out its wings and was gone again, and the nurse’s admonishments were lost in her panting as they followed the butterfly. By the time the butterfly alighted on the top of a rock long enough for the princess to climb up and take notes on its appearance, talking softly and cheerfully to it, it had gotten significantly colder.

The nurse realized this was due in part to how far up the mountain they had come, and in part to how far below the horizon the sun was beginning to dip, and for the first time in a very long time, panic constricted her throat.


	3. Chapter 3

_Double, double, toil and trouble_

_What’s a cob who can’t grow his stubble?_

_Double, double_ —

Mako paused her song at the sound of someone wailing. Something hissed behind her, and she started a new song, louder, walking towards the wail and adjusting her pickax on her shoulder.

_There once was a big ugly cob_

_Who smelled more like death than a bog_

_He came by my house_

_Tore up Mother’s blouse_

_And drank all the milk and the grog_

“No, no, it’s okay,” a clear soft voice was saying. Mako rounded the corner to find the source of the wailing—the older woman in the brown that was always frowning when Mako passed her was crying, and the pretty girl she was always with was trying to calm her down. “It’s okay, it’s only dark out,” she tried, but the older woman just cried harder and clung to her. “If you had let me ask the man back there for directions—”

“Hello,” Mako called out, waving. “What are you doing out so late?”

The girl twisted around in the older woman’s arms, brightening when she saw Mako. “Oh, hello! Look,” she said to the woman, struggling to pull away, “we can ask _her_ for help, can’t we?” When she didn’t receive a reply, she turned back to Mako with a hopeful smile. “Do you know where the path is? We aren’t usually out after dark…”

Mako grinned. “Yeah, of course!” She held out her free hand, gripping her ax a little more securely. “You’re doing pretty good if you aren’t scared of the cobs. Even better if you’re with someone they’re scared of.”

“Are they scared of you?” The girl took her hand, head tilted. “What are the cobs?”

“No!” shrieked the older woman. Then, collecting herself and giving Mako a steely glare, “No. Don’t you go scaring her. Just take us back to the path and we will—we will make it back to the house on our own.”

Mako lifted her shoulders. “I can walk you back if you want?”

The girl was peering curiously around her. “Is that a cob?”

“Walk us back!” The older woman grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pulled her away, eyes wild with fear. “Walk us back immediately!”

“Okay, okay, but first you have to calm down,” she instructed. Mako gestured for them to stick close. “Don’t look back; the more scared you are, the more it attracts them.”

She whistled a quick three notes, then picked another simple rhyming song.

_Cob in the hand’s worth none in the stone_

_What’s a cob worth when he’s not at home?_

_Nothing to a miner, nothing to the sun_

_Nothing when it’s over and said and done_

_A cob’s a cob’s a nasty ol’ thing_

_And when he’s around you know what he brings?_

_His squat little pig, his long-legged cat_

_And when you get sick, he smells like that_ —

“Stop it,” the older woman hissed, looking around and wringing her hands. “They’ll hear you!”

Mako raised her eyebrows. “You better hope they do; they hate songs, especially about themselves. I’m scaring them off.” She glanced back. “Anyway, there aren’t any there now. I’m Mako.”

The girl turned around, craning her neck. Seeming a little disappointed not to see anything, she looked up at Mako curiously. “I’m Ami.”

“It’s nice to officially meet you Ami,” she grinned. “How’s your caterpillar doing?”

“Butterfly! Butterfly now, actually; that’s—we were following it, I wanted to track its first behavior after emerging from the chrysalis.” Ami bounced a little, still looking behind them.

“You followed a butterfly… up the mountain?” She laughed, incredulous.

The older woman huffed. “Don’t take that tone with the _princess_.”

Laughter dying immediately, Mako stopped. “With the—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ami said hurriedly, but the woman huffed again, more emphatically.

“Yes indeed. _You_ ought to show a little less familiarity.”

“No, I—well, I’m sorry,” she apologized, “but you shouldn’t say things like that. Just because they’re scared of getting too close doesn’t mean they can’t hear things.”

The woman snapped her mouth shut. Ami furrowed her brow and looked at her, very serious. “So… so what are the cobs?”

“The goblins?” Mako said.

Her eyes widened. “They live in the mountain…?”

“Yeah. We have to be careful; they don’t really like us digging where they live. Understandably, I guess.” Something rustled in the branches overhead, and Mako suddenly found a smaller hand gripping hers tightly. She cleared her throat, whistling until the rustling thing darted away.

She was suddenly very aware, when Ami didn’t let go, of how many patches of rougher skin she’d built up on the inside of her fingers and her palms from handling a pickax every day, of how there were exactly none of those on _her_ hand, of how much coal dust she’d accumulated on her skin throughout the day, of how she was smearing her smooth soft small palm and fingers and knuckles in dirt.

“I’m sorry,” she started to say, just as Ami asked, “Do they ever talk to you?” and so, instead, she blinked and said, “What?”

“The goblins. The, the cobs,” Ami corrected herself, then repeated, “Do they ever talk to you?”

She squinted up at the stars for a moment. “That’s not… really something we ever… I mean, they eat people, princess; didn’t you know—?”

But the older woman was shaking her head and trying to cover the girl’s ears, and Ami was ducking out of the way with an embarrassed little _no, stop_ , and Mako swallowed nervously, because she clearly did not, in fact, know that.

“Oh. Uh. I’m sorry,” she began again, and this time the woman cut her off with a scathing glare.

“Are we very near the house?”

Mako pointed to a sturdy spot of light, still some distance down the path. “That’s it, isn’t it? I can walk you to the door.”

“No, thank you,” the woman said shortly. “You’ve done quite enough as it is.”

“Oh, but,” Ami mused, thoughtful, “wouldn’t it be terrible to arrive back home, with everyone so worried about us being out after dark, by ourselves?”

The woman paled visibly even in the low light. Mako struggled to keep a blank face. “Child, you _mustn’t_ tell them I allowed this—”

She just smiled and lifted her shoulders, the gesture brushing her arm against Mako’s, a brief sensation of warmth under the soft fabric of her sleeve, and Mako had to stare very intently at the path, trying to will away the sudden burning in her cheeks. She might have let herself think about it more if she had been still _the pretty girl with the caterpillar diary_ and not _princess_ , but here they were almost to the door of the house and she was still telling herself _stop thinking about her like that what the hell_.

Except that made it sound like she’d thought like that at all, which would be silly, of course, and then Ami smiled at her and Mako lost the rest of her thought. “Thank you for—everything; we really appreciate it,” she said, letting go of her and stepping back to drop a curtsy. Mako heard an embarrassingly nervous laugh start to come out of her own mouth and scrambled to turn it into a cough instead.

“Yeah, er, I mean, it was nothing.” _Real impressive_.

The woman was fidgeting in the doorway. “Come inside now, child, quickly. Please.”

“I’ll—” But then the door closed, and Mako didn’t get to find out what Ami would do. She blinked a few times in the dark again. It took her a minute, but she shook herself, shifted her ax to her other shoulder, and returned to the path, humming.

* * *

When the sun seeped through the curtains in the morning, Ami awoke with the urgent feeling she had forgotten something important. “Oh!” She sat up too suddenly and had to press her palms to her eyes while she waited for her vision to clear.

In the excitement of last night, she had forgotten to visit her friend again. She hoped she would understand; there had been a lot going on, what with finally getting to meet the miner girl and finding out about the goblins (“The cobs?” she heard the miner girl say, her voice low and honey-rich, “They’re scared of me, don’t worry,” and how could _anyone_ be afraid of a voice like that?) and then the nurse had made her promise not to tell anyone they’d been out so late and she’d fallen asleep with her shoes on by accident. She pulled them off now and set them carefully by the wall, grabbing a clean set of clothes and changing hurriedly before darting out into the hall. The passage was still there behind the tapestry—which was a relief, as she had half-thought she’d dreamed the whole thing.

The staircase leading up to the third floor weren’t there when she got to the top of the stairs, but they hadn’t been there at first last time either, she reasoned. Ami leaned into the wall, standing on her toes as she tried to find some way to open the passage again. There had to be a crack at least, right? It had opened—she hadn’t dreamed it, she couldn’t have; her friend had told her about the goblins—or at least, she’d said there was a civilization in the mountain, and…

_I’m your friend_.

There was nothing. The wall was completely smooth.

Ami took a hesitant step back, staring up at the wall and chewing on her lower lip, brow knit. She hadn’t dreamed it. She _hadn’t_. There was a woman living on the third floor, and she was her friend, and she knew things.

She curled her hands into fists and banged on the wall. “Hello? Are you there?” she called. “It’s—it’s me—”

There was still no answer. When the stairs finally did reappear, the sun had set completely, and Ami had thought of several more questions for her friend, not the least of which was _where did you go?  
_


	4. Chapter 4

The best part of working in the mines, Mako thought, was the singing. And, yeah, part of that was because it helped keep the cobs away, but there was just something about the way seventy-nine voices from this tunnel and the next two over blended together and bounced off the walls that made it feel like you were really part of something. It felt a lot lonelier after it got dark outside, and everyone started to trickle home. Then there weren’t really enough people to sing all together—and the only time you really heard someone else singing was if they came across a cob’s nest, and then, well, they didn’t sing very long either way; if the cobs got them, they got cut off with a terrible shriek, and if the cob was scared off, they finished the verse and went silent again.

Mako didn’t work nights very often. The overtime was a good way to earn some extra pocket money, but it wasn’t always worth losing a night’s sleep for. Winter was getting closer and closer now, though, and when she’d tried to wrestle her coat on to go by the market, she’d found the sleeves a couple inches too short yet again. Which meant she was going to have to save up for a new one, again.

Which was why she was here tonight after everyone else had gone home. It wasn’t so bad—she knew enough rhymes to take care of herself, and if she came across a cob that didn’t mind so much, well, there were more uses for a pickax than mining.

The mine had been silent for several hours when she stopped to take a break, sitting down and leaning against the wall to catch her breath before reaching for the tin she’d put her food in. She’d just closed her eyes and set the tin down again when she heard something like a voice.

Mako went still, listening. The sound was definitely coming from the other side of the wall, and she could almost make out words… She inched as quietly as she could a little ways down the tunnel, until the voice was intelligible.

“No, no, they’re all long gone by now,” said the gravelly voice of a goblin.

Another answered it. “The last one stopped ages ago,” it piped up with a huff. “Good thing, too; she’s getting too close to breaking through.”

“I _know_ that, you dimwitted boulder. Pick up the table; I’ve sorted out a new home further inmount. We’ll take what we can and get it put away before the king’s speech.” The first one grunted the grunt of someone lifting a heavy object, and a higher, younger voice chimed in.

“Will the queen be there? Is it true she wears shoes?”

“Grum,” said the second voice, “you know it is. Don’t stare when you see her.”

“Why does she wear shoes?”

“The last queen did.” The first voice sounded impatient. “The sun-women all do. The queen doesn’t want the king’s exotic tastes drawing him away from her.”

The goblin’s voice was getting fainter. Mako pressed her ear to the wall, holding her breath. “I heard his son fancies sun-women too,” the second voice said in a low tone. Grum made a captivated sound. “I heard the queen wears shoes because she has _toes_.”

“Don’t put that filth into Grum’s head,” snapped the first voice with a shudder. “I said pick up the table; we have to go. Grum, grab what you can and we’ll come back for the rest of the furniture after the assembly.”

Grum shivered audibly. Mako heard his teeth clicking together. “Aw, Ma, does she really have toes?”

The first voice hissed. “ _Grum_.”

They were going to leave—an assembly called by the goblin king must be for something important, Mako thought. And they didn’t know she was still here… She began, as quietly as she could, to move some of the looser rocks away from the wall.

“You don’t remember it because it was before your time,” the second voice confided after the first had stomped off, “but before the king married the queen, he had a sun-woman. The strangest-looking thing you ever saw, all lean and wrong, and so much hair as you never did see, and then her shoes. She was always wearing those shoes, hiding her shameful ugly toes.”

“All the sun-people wear them?”

“Oh, yes. And they’re so weak; the sun-woman died shortly after the prince was born—” Mako gagged involuntarily at the sudden mental image. “—and _you’ve_ seen how often the miners change out, even though you’re only a child yourself, a hundred and two.”

The hole was wide enough to reach through now. Something soft and spongy met her fingertips, and Grum shrieked. She jerked her hand back and jammed one of the bigger rocks in front of the hole, heart pounding.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Something came out of the wall and licked my foot,” wailed Grum. “A _creature_ licked my _foot!_ ”

The second voice scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous; there aren’t any creatures in the walls. Your mother is getting impatient now. Get your bedding.”

She strained to hear the quiet padding of soft feet—when they were gone, she scrambled to pull the rest of the stones away, wriggling through the hole into the den beyond. Mako stood up too fast and hit her head on the ceiling. She bit down on her tongue, hunching awkwardly as she looked around. There were no signs that someone lived there. She looked around; spotting an opening she thought could pass as a door, she ducked out into the more open tunnels.

The ceilings arced high overhead, and distant torchlight flickered off the walls. Mako followed the light, sticking close to the walls and moving as quietly as she could. The goblin family she’d stumbled upon were trudging single-file, a collection of absurd-looking creatures even in the dim lighting.

They marched through the winding tunnels, Mako trailing a safe distance behind, trying to remember how many turns they made and hoping she would be able to find her way back. The one she thought had spoken first left the other two at another cave with the belongings they had gathered, and when that goblin left to continue on, so did she. They had been walking for only a few more minutes when the tunnels emptied out into a gaping, well-lit cavern full of goblins, who had just broken into thunderous applause.

Mako backpedaled hurriedly and dove behind a lopsided boulder.

The king had, it seemed, been making a speech, which was what the rest were applauding. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to resist the urge to break into a shout of _There once was a big ugly cob_ … One of the ones at the front who seemed to be a member of the royal court was announcing now, “It is apparent to us all, by now, that our gracious king has been building these two plans against the sun-people who have so wronged us for quite some time. It is due to the care and intelligence of our king that we will finally enact our devastating vengeance on they who have for so long looked down upon us despite our obviously superior intellect, stamina, and longevity.”

Right, Mako thought, very obvious. The goblin she had followed suddenly called out, “If I may, your majesty—?”

“Who is that?” demanded one on the other side of the king. “Who dares to interrupt the Chancellor speaking?”

“Only I, Belgni,” the goblin bowed, a slightly horrific gesture in a creature that looked like a child’s drawing come to life.

The king stamped his intricate golden rod on the ground twice in slow, deliberate motions. “Let her speak,” he said, head high and voice booming. “Belgni is a trusted subject.”

Belgni bowed again. “If I may request that the timeline for his majesty’s most superb plans be moved forward—the miners are encroaching upon my home and continue their slow invasion with every passing hour. The wall between their tunnels and my dining area has grown extremely thin and will likely be breached before their next workday is completed.” Mako thought of the hole she’d left in their wall and winced. Well, the goblin wasn’t wrong. “I also have some further information regarding the second plan his majesty proposed, which is that there is are several weak spots in the home I have just been forced to move my family out of and that I have observed the effects of a secondary river which may feed into the one exiting our mountain where the repulsive sun-people enter it. I hope that this will be of some use in executing his majesty’s most wonderful plans.” With one last bow, Belgni sat again amongst the rest of the goblins.

The king stroked his chin—or where Mako thought his chin was meant to be, if he had had one at all—in thought and nodded slowly. “Belgni makes a point which will be considered should the first plan be rendered obsolete,” the Chancellor declared for him. “However, as the king is both reasonable and just, the former takes precedence over the latter. Should it succeed as planned, the sun-people will be forced into peace with us for a considerable time without much violent effort on our part. This is, of course, most preferable. Belgni’s input on the latter plan will be kept in mind in the event of failure of the first plan, which is, of course, unlikely, as his majesty the king is wise and has not failed in his machinations before.”

Deciding she’d probably heard enough for now and really not wanting to be confronted by what seemed to be the majority of the goblin population, Mako backed quietly out of the assembly hall and walked as quickly as stealth allowed back the way she’d come, trying to remember the turns they’d made. Every stone wall looked the same, especially in the dark now without the goblins’ torches, but she found her way back to the hole in the wall eventually, dropping to the ground to scramble through to the other side and block it back as best she could.

The cobs were planning something—something that would be “devastating,” the Chancellor had said. She grabbed her ax, her lamp, and her tin, setting her jaw. If the second plan involved the river somehow, then… were they going to flood the mine?


	5. Chapter 5

“Oh, hello! Come in!” called her friend when Ami knocked on the ornate door. She was sitting by the spinning wheel and beaming. “I’ve been doing so much work while you were gone! I really think I’ll have your present finished in another day or two. Will you come back then?”

_Of course_ , she wanted to say, but what came out instead was “Where have you been?”

Her friend looked up in surprise, silver-gold hair swishing softly over her bare shoulders. “What do you mean? I’ve been here, of course.”

“No,” Ami said, closing the door behind her, “no, you haven’t. I tried—I’ve been waiting on the second floor all afternoon, trying to open the stairway, and it wouldn’t open until after dark. Why? Where did you go?”

Puzzled, her friend tipped her head. “Well, I work better at night, so I was asleep until a little before you came. I don’t know why that would affect the _stairs_ , though.” She turned and flashed her a bright smile. “It’s alright, I’m here now. You have things to tell me, don’t you?”

The little chair she had sat in before wasn’t there this time, so Ami sat on the floor by her friend’s feet and hugged her knees to her chest, brow furrowed. “We were out after dark last night,” she started slowly, “the nurse and I, I mean. It was my fault, and maybe a little on purpose—not _really_ , I didn’t mean for us to get lost, I just… wanted to know. But then she panicked, and she was running too fast, and then we were lost. I tried to tell her we could just ask for help, but she started crying and I couldn’t understand her. Then…” Then the miner girl. Mako. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Um, there’s—one of the miners—we see her sometimes, when she’s going up the mountain and we’re outside. She’s, she’s very, um,” Ami caught sight of the grin her friend was wearing and flushed, “yes.”

“Ooo, very yes. I see.”

She ducked her head and pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Yes. A-anyway, she showed up and the point of this was that you didn’t tell me the civilization in the mountain is a civilization of goblins, or that they eat people, and did you know that was going to happen? Is that what you meant by ‘you’ll find out very soon’?”

Eyes twinkling, her friend lifted her shoulders, getting up to sprinkle some sweet-smelling dust on the rose-fire. “Maybe! Did you bring any sweets?”

“Er—no, should I have?”

“Yes! Those little cakes the cook makes are so good,” she sighed, coming back to sit down again. “And the frosting! Mmm.”

“What do you eat up here?” Ami looked around, not seeing any places to keep food. “…or do you eat?”

“Of course I eat!” She sounded offended, drawing back and looking down. “What kind of a silly question is that? I keep my food in my bedroom, for snacking!”

“You have another room?”

Her friend pointed to a door that almost certainly hadn’t been there before. “Right over there! Anyway, I just like the cakes from the kitchen and haven’t had any in forever.”

“Oh. I’ll… I’ll bring you some next time,” she nodded. “What kind?”

“Strawberry!” Clapping her hands together, her friend smiled. “Now! I have to ask, in the name of friendship and such. When do I get to meet the very yes miner girl?”

“Well, I—I don’t really know her yet, I don’t—I don’t even know if she…” Ami trailed off and shook her head. Heat flooded her cheeks at the knowing look her friend gave her. “It—it doesn’t matter! I want—I want to know more about the goblins,” she said earnestly. “Why haven’t I heard of them before? What do you know?”

“I know plenty!” Her friend reached out, smoothing a hand over her hair affectionately. “Well… they might not like it downstairs if I tell you everything, but I can tell you _some_ things.”

“Like what?” Hesitant, she tilted her head awkwardly into the touch.

“Like that they’re really not very nice,” she said, suddenly serious. “And you should avoid them as much as you can. They really hate singing, and especially songs about themselves, let’s see. Did you know they’re incredibly vain though?” She nodded, stroking her hair as she chattered on. “And some of them look almost human, but mostly they just look like extra bits all shoved together. Oh—and they have pets, which aren’t very smart, but they don’t like people either, and they’re so _loud_.”

Her voice was dipping in and out of sound, one moment words and the next a low buzz humming right next to Ami’s eardrums. She struggled to focus, but her eyelids were so heavy. No, no, she was learning things, she reprimanded herself, potentially important information…

It didn’t matter. She fell asleep with her temple against her friend’s knee.

* * *

 

The sun was stretching slender fingers of light through the curtains when Ami jolted awake and upright, gasping out, “Wait, what do they—” The question died in her mouth as she realized where she was: in her own bed, in her nightdress, and not on the elusive third floor. It took her a moment to register the hand on her forehead and the nurse’s babbling.

“…shouldn’t scare us half to death like that, child, honestly, one would think with all the reading you do you’d have gained some _sense_ ,” she was saying reproachfully. “Where did you go all yesterday? We couldn’t find you! Do you know the fright you gave us all? And _what_ were you up to? You’ve gone and gotten yourself sick—you’re positively feverish!”

“I feel fine,” she protested, trying to gently push away the hand on her face, but the nurse was having none of it.

“You’re burning, child! I’m sorry, but I refuse to let you outside after yesterday—really, what were you thinking, leaving the house until all hours of the morning, sneaking back in like a thief, leaving the window open—are you _looking_ for trouble?” the nurse demanded. “At this rate it isn’t far off and you’ll be the death of us all!”

“But I didn’t leave the house!”

“Then where were you? We searched the entire house!”

“I was just upstairs,” she tried, but the nurse cut her off sharply.

“There is no upstairs.” The nurse folded her arms, the corners of her mouth tugging downwards. “You’re talking complete nonsense.”

“I am not—”

“Listen to me. You’re ill. You’re to stay put until your fever goes down—these curtains do not open, you do not leave the house, and there is to be absolutely no talk of foolish things until I _say_ so, is that clear?” She was livid. Her breath was coming short and heavy, the scowl leaden on her face, and her white-knuckled fists hadn’t let go of her own skirt since she’d begun her list.

Ami dropped her hands to her lap and lowered her gaze. “Yes.” And though it was perfectly clear (she was only angry because she had been so worried, Ami told herself, and that was her fault; she should have known that someone would come looking for her by mealtime at the least), the pointed phrasing stung. _Foolish_.

The nurse was already embracing her tightly, babbling tearfully now about how worried she had been, and Ami responded automatically—but to think she had broken her trust, acted _foolishly_ of all things, when she’d only been upstairs—

…left a window open, she thought suddenly as the nurse went to get something. She fell back heavily against her pillow and dragged her hands down her face. Left a window open. But she hadn’t, she hadn’t even gone outside. So how could a window have been left open? Unless.

Unless.

She hadn’t been feverish yesterday, not that she could recall. Her friend… the stairs hadn’t appeared, hadn’t been there at all until after dark, which was impossible. Ami had never been a sleepwalker. But… could she have dreamed it all, gone out through a window somehow when she’d thought the stairs had appeared? That would mean she had dreamed the encounter with her friend, too, and maybe the first as well. She didn’t want to think that she had dreamed herself a friend. It was a ridiculously pathetic thought, so she tried to think around it. If she hadn’t dreamed it all, and she didn’t think she had, then someone else had left the window open to so distress the nurse. They had assumed it was Ami, which meant everyone else had been accounted for, and if nobody had opened the window to leave, then… perhaps someone had come in.

Or, one of them had wanted the window open and forgotten it. A possibility, however ordinary. She didn’t think anyone would have forgotten an open window, as afraid as they were of the dark—but if no one had yet discovered someone here who shouldn’t be, and no one had left, that was the only explanation available.

She half-hoped it wasn’t so, and when the nurse had gone again, she scrambled to lean over the side of her bed, peering cautiously into the dark space underneath. Seeing no bright eyes or unfamiliar shapes, only the outline of her book-crates, she let out a breath and sat up again, blinking back the sudden dizziness that followed.

Whatever else was happening, she told herself, she wasn’t ill, not really. However, it was getting colder, and it wouldn’t do at all to make herself sick—it wouldn’t help anything, and how would she get to see her friend or Mako (who, she thought, was _also_ her friend, maybe, if one wasn’t too particular about how much one really had to know about one’s friends before the title could apply). The nurse would cry again and be hurt if she were to try to slip out, too. So, she told herself seriously, it would be alright if she waited a few days for the nurse to be satisfied before going either up or out again. It would.

She exhaled softly and dropped her chin into her hands, deciding she was really not very persuasive.


	6. Chapter 6

It was almost a month before she could get away again. Ami hadn’t been able to convince the nurse to let her outside again, but the restless pacing up and down the halls all night had stopped at last, which was why she was now tiptoeing as silently as possible to the tapestry that hid the stairs to the second floor. The stairs to her friend were there—relief loosened the tension in her shoulders, and she bounded up to the carved door with a hopeful smile.

Her friend opened the door before she could knock, and her face was as bright as the moon, looking young now, though that would fluctuate again in a moment as it always did. “You’re here!” she beamed, moving out of the way to let Ami in. “I finished your present!”

“My—?”

“Look!” Her friend held out a small, silvery ball. It shone softly in the light of the fire-roses, but when Ami reached out to touch it, her friend pulled it away. “Wait a minute,” she said, then scurried to a cabinet that seemed to materialize out of nowhere and hopped to put it on the top shelf. She came back with a thin silver band and held it out. “Okay, here, put this on.”

Taking the ring curiously, Ami studied it. “Is this… what does this have to do with the other?”

“Well,” her friend sat down, “whenever you want to find me, if you’re lost or scared or you just want to talk, you take that off and put it under your pillow, and then you follow the thread—you see the thread, right? I spent _so_ long on it and I had to use spider’s silk but I think I did a really good job—you follow the thread, and it will bring you to wherever I am.” She grinned, proud of herself.

Ami held up the ring, lighting up when she saw the fine thread glimmer in the firelight. “Oh! I do see it, yes!” She slid it carefully onto her finger and reached out to touch the impossibly thin thread. “Won’t it—what if it breaks?”

“It won’t,” her friend assured her.

“How do you know?”

“Magic!” With a giggle, her friend plucked at the thread. “See? I don’t normally like spiders very much, but these ones are really very helpful. Promise you’ll take it with you?”

She broke into a smile. “Yes, of course!”

“Oh, but,” her friend stood again, suddenly serious. “But, there’s, there’s a rule you have to follow. When you’re following the thread, you can’t go backwards. If you try to double back, it will disappear. But it’s okay because you won’t do that, will you?” She clasped her hands together anxiously, and Ami nodded, not wanting to disappoint her after she’d clearly spent so long working on the gift. “Good! And, um.” She tilted her head, bright blue eyes unnervingly sharp. “That means you have to trust me, okay? You have to trust that wherever the thread leads, as long as you follow it, nothing can hurt you. You trust me, right?”

She looked down at the silver band and, slowly, nodded. “Yes. Yes, I trust you.”

* * *

Winter was drawing closer, and Mako spent most nights at the mine now—which meant she almost had enough for a new coat, and that she also knew her way around the goblins’ tunnels fairly well. They were meeting in the great hall of the king more and more often now, as the nights grew longer; most of their talk was concerned with how they would redirect the river, where those who lived in its proposed path would relocate, and other things that made her head feel full of cotton and her eyelids heavy. She hadn’t heard anything of their first plan again, which only made her want to know what it was even more.

Tonight was more of the same, so Mako left when it seemed things were winding down, rubbing at her eyes as she crept out again. Or at least, that had been the plan—

—she was already halfway turned around when she remembered the pickax on her shoulder and the proximity of the wall, and with a horrible screeching of metal across dense stone, every goblin mouth went silent and every set of goblin eyes turned to see Mako crouching awkwardly behind a formation in the rock, swallowing the panicked lump building in her throat. “Uh… hello.”

And then the room erupted, and Mako was suddenly very glad of the high ceilings in the king’s hall as she stood, half a head taller than their tallest and swinging her ax wildly. “Spy! Spy!” the Chancellor howled, and if she hadn’t been busy trying to keep them off her Mako might have tried to explain that she wasn’t spying for anyone except herself, at least until she had enough information to tell people real information beyond _the goblins are planning bad things_ , which wasn’t even _news_. Since she was busy swinging her ax and stomping left and right at goblin feet, though, she didn’t have the chance or thought to try to defend herself from the verbal attacks as well.

One of them got hold of her ponytail and yanked, and with a yell somewhere between outrage and pain she staggered backwards, head snapping back. “Get off me, you rotten—” The string of swearing that followed was foul enough to make the ones in earshot laugh, at least until Mako’s ax came careening recklessly towards them. By the time they had overtaken her, she’d thought she had made short work of quite a few and was rather proud of herself, a feeling which only lasted until she saw none on the ground and several slinking away with limps and rubbing at their heads. She’d known they were resilient, of course, but to be nearly unaffected—! Mako wouldn’t have admitted it, but it was something of a blow to her pride.

The crowd parted, and the three members of the royal family made their way over to where she was sitting on the ground, scowling. It was ridiculously tempting to burst into rhyming song. “It’s a miner,” the queen said, unnaturally large eyes blinking over her tiny nose.

“It’s a sun-woman,” the prince said, baring his teeth in a grin.

“It’s a criminal,” the king said, leaning down to glare at her eye-level, “and will be imprisoned as such, else it divulge our plans to the rest of the miners and the sun-people.”

Mako spat at him. “ _It_ ’s got a name, and isn’t an _it_ , and doesn’t _have_ any plans to divulge to anyone.”

The queen curled her lip. “Don’t you think the cats are hungry, dear?” Her stone shoes echoed on the smooth floor as she moved to the other side of the king, laying a three-fingered hand on his shoulder.

“Yes,” he replied absently, staring instead at the pickax that had skittered some distance away, “yes, I do.”

The goblin-cats, as it turned out, were not all accounted for, and as the three could not eat without the fourth, Mako was shoved unceremoniously into a cell—which was, it turned out, nothing more than a tiny cave in the wall of the royal chambers—as the king convinced the queen that the fourth would return of its own accord.

“You’re gonna regret this!” Mako yelled, then kicked the wall. The metal toe of her boot _kling_ -ed on the stone and left her hopping awkwardly on one foot, cursing under her breath. “I’m not playin’ around, let me out of here!”

But, of course, they didn’t.


	7. Chapter 7

If Ami had thought she would be using the ring the night after her friend gave it to her, she would not have left without thinking through and asking the questions she would inevitably come up with. As the idea that it would so soon be necessary never crossed her mind, though, she left without having yet composed a list of questions, much less asked them.

Which is how she found herself, the next night, startled out of bed with a shriek by something skinny with too many teeth and too long legs, and half-tripping over herself as she bolted from the room, one hand on the thread. The cold outdoor air woke her up more completely, and she halted, blinking suddenly in the moonlight and trying to remember what it was that had scared her out of the house. There had been a breeze, she thought—and something had _jumped_ on her, something with bright eyes and…

She shook her head and shivered. It didn’t matter, she told herself; she was here now, and she couldn’t go back now that she was following the thread. She’d promised. Although Ami wasn’t entirely sure what her friend was doing outside, she had made a promise, and she would keep it.

Even if that apparently meant trekking up the mountain in her nightdress with no light but the moon.

Despite the faint glimmer of the silver thread ahead of her—which was reassuring in its own way, she thought hurriedly—despite that, it was something of a lonely hike, and she hadn’t remembered it being quite this steep the last time. Granted, the last time she had been on the mountain after dark, she hadn’t been alone, and… it had… certainly not _hurt_ that she was perhaps more preoccupied with other things at the time, like the sprinkling of tiny freckles over Mako’s cheekbones and nose, and her nervous grip, and how soft her hair looked up close, and—things like that, which were just hypothetical examples, and certainly weren’t distracting her thoughts again at the moment.

The thread disappeared ahead of her into a hole in the side of the mountain, big enough for someone much taller than Ami to walk comfortably into, and as she tentatively stepped out of the moonlight and into the mountain, she realized that this must be the entrance to the mine. None of the miners would still be here, of course, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking curiously at the rusted buckets and broken handles of discarded pickaxes. She had to stop when the thread dipped suddenly. Puzzled, Ami dropped to her knees, following it to a smaller hole in the wall. “Where _are_ you?” she wondered aloud as she squirmed through. The dust that arose sent her coughing, but when she had regained her composure, she found that the thread had led her into what seemed to be a much more intricate set of tunnels.

These couldn’t be part of the mine. Ami kept her hand on the thread, trying to make as little noise as possible as she followed it. She wondered if it was part of the goblins’ realm—only she hadn’t seen any goblins yet. Which was probably a stroke of luck, she decided, not particularly wanting to meet one without anyone knowing where she was.

Abruptly the thread turned down a narrower passage, so that she had to awkwardly inch through sideways, the hand on the thread stretched out before her to make sure she didn’t lose hold of it. She was just beginning to worry that she might be stuck shuffling uncomfortably between the rock for the rest of the unexpectedly long journey when it opened into a wider cavern, cylindrical and tall as if she were at the bottom of a well.

It sounded, faintly, as if someone were singing.

“Hello?” Ami whispered. The sound echoed off the walls. _Hello?_ _Hello?_ _Hello?_

The thread led her to the wall across from the narrow passage, then disappeared into a crack. The singing seemed to be coming from the other side of the wall. Tentatively, she knocked, and it stopped.

Something hit the other side of the wall abruptly. “Hello?” came a muffled, confused voice.

“Hello?” Ami pressed her ear to the wall. “Is that—is it you?”

“Well, it—I mean I’m not anybody else, if that’s what you’re asking. Wait who—pr— _Ami_?”

“ _Mako_?” She started looking for something to help her widen the crack that the thread vanished into. “What are you doing there?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. It’s kind of a long story, and it’s really sort of dangerous; you shouldn’t be here,” she said urgently. “There’s—I don’t want to scare you or anything—”

“Oh, don’t mind about that. I was a little worried, but I haven’t seen any at all, and it’s alright if you’re here.” Finding nothing, Ami set to work pulling at the stones herself. “Hold on, I’ll be right there, and then my friend will help us back out.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes, she’s very… sweet? But she’s how I found you—you did want to be found, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, I just, well,” Mako said, sounding confused, “how?”

Ami staggered backwards when a piece of the wall crumbled away under her hands. “I just was following the thread, that’s all. It’s still there on the other side of this, isn’t it?”

“What thread?”

Standing on her toes, she peered through the wider hole and brightened at the sight of the silver thread continuing. “Oh, it is! Wait, if I can just get through here—” She pulled some more of the crumbling rock out of the way and hoisted herself up onto the ledge, scooting forward and pushing at the stone on the other side. “Would you mind helping me with this?” Ami started to ask, but she only made it so far as “mind” when the wall gave way.

* * *

Mako bit back a yelp when the stone wall exploded and a blur of dusty lilac and blue came tumbling out to land at her feet. “Ow,” the princess sat up, shaking the coal dust out of her hair and blinking.

“Uh,” Mako said. “Hello?”

She looked up and broke into a grin, scrambling to her feet. “Hello!”

“…you’re in your nightdress.” Mako reddened and was suddenly grateful for the dark. “Er—and where are your shoes? Did you… does anyone know you’re here?” But Ami was already moving around her, brushing the dirt from her skirt and the lacy collar of her dress. “How—didn’t you freeze coming up the mountain like that? Are you okay?”

She turned, brow knit and one hand stretched out in front of her. “Yes? Are you?”

“I—yeah, sure, it’s just—what are you doing?”

“Following the thread,” Ami said curiously. “It was a gift from my friend, and it’s supposed to lead me to her, only it… came up here and to you. Which isn’t a bad thing, I had actually been hoping—I mean it’s, um, it’s been a while, how are you?”

Mako laughed and lifted her shoulders. “Well, I’m in goblin jail and they stole my pickax, so could be better, really. Does this thread of yours have a way out?”

“I think so, yes,” she nodded, then dropped suddenly to a crouch. “Oh. Through this door, I think?”

“What door?” Mako knelt beside her, swiping away the dirt from a trapdoor that she was completely sure had not been there before. “What the hell?”

Ami didn’t seem surprised, just pulled open the door that almost definitely had not been there before and peered down. “It doesn’t look very deep.”

“That doesn’t mean—wait!” she yelped, but she’d already jumped through and landed with a little thud. “ _Princess_ ,” Mako hissed nervously as she followed suit, “you’ve gotta be more careful, they’re not sleeping and they’re coming to find me as soon as they find their other cat, and how did you know none of them would be down here?”

“Because the thread wouldn’t lead us anywhere dangerous.” She stopped so abruptly Mako nearly ran into her. “Mako?”

Mako swallowed. “Uh. Yeah…?”

“Please don’t call me that,” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “I don’t… I just want to be Ami to you. As—as a friend.” It was silent for a moment as Mako stared down at her. Ami flushed suddenly and turned back to this invisible thread. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to misinterpret—”

“Wait, wait, no,” she blurted, “no, we’re—we’re friends, if you—I just didn’t realize, um, since, I mean… I’m not, I’m not, I don’t even really have a dress that fits right, so I didn’t think…” Clearing her throat, Mako nodded. “You, um, you didn’t. Misinterpret anything.”

For a moment, there was no answer, and if Mako wasn’t already underground and in the dark she might have wanted desperately to crawl into a hole and hide. Then Ami reached hesitantly for her hand, whispering, “I think we’re almost out.”

Mako closed her eyes to listen. “Yeah, I can hear the wind.”

“Also there’s moonlight up ahead.”

“…that too, that’s definitely a way to tell.” She thought she heard Ami giggle, but she turned her head away to cough instead. “Thank you, um, for the jailbreak, pr—Ami.”

They stepped out onto the side of the mountain, and Mako looked down at her. The smile on her face, shy and lingering, made the memory of the goblins’ sneers worth it.


	8. Chapter 8

It was almost sunrise by the time the thread left them at the doorstep of the house, and Ami spun to face Mako, anxiously fiddling with the skirt of her nightdress. “Will you be alright going back into the valley on your own?”

Mako smiled, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to look for very long. “Ami,” she said, honey-rich voice gentle and low and _please say it again just like that_ , “I’ve been going up and down this mountain for years. I’ll be fine. Thank you again for coming all that way.”

“Oh—it wasn’t just me, I was following—” Mako touched her shoulder, and very suddenly and very irrationally she wished it _had_ been just her.

“You were following the… thread,” smiled the miner girl. “Yeah. Seems really useful. Maybe someday I can meet this friend of yours and get myself one too.”

“I can introduce you if you like? I would have to see if she’s alright with it, but I think she would be,” Ami offered.

With a laugh, Mako hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her denim overalls. “Sure, as long as it’s fine with her. Not tonight— _today_ though, I think. Your people will be getting up soon, won’t they? You’ll have to get back where you’re supposed to be before they want any questions answered that you don’t want to answer.”

She hesitated, remembering what had startled her awake. “What… what do the goblin-cats look like?”

“Sort of like regular cats, I guess, just… hairless and grey, and more teeth, and longer legs,” she said slowly. “Why?”

That did sound like the thing that had jumped on her. “I think there was one in my room, before I—before I came up the mountain.” Ami shifted nervously. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t entirely awake, and I didn’t exactly take the time to study it very closely, so I can’t be certain, but…”

“You want me to come check it out?” Mako’s smile dropped, her expression suddenly serious. “I’ll come take a look for you if it’d make you feel better.”

“If you don’t mind…? I just don’t want to worry any of them if it’s gone, and if it isn’t I don’t know how they… I don’t want to frighten anyone.” And if she was still a little apprehensive herself, well, she didn’t have to mention that. Mako nodded and motioned for her to lead the way.

The house was silent, and they had made it all the way to her room when Mako suddenly stopped, an odd look on her face. “Uh,” she began in a whisper, “maybe you’d better, er, wait out here, while I, yeah.” That made sense, Ami thought, and was about to voice as much when Mako added weakly, “Otherwise it, you know… looks bad, and the lady in brown doesn’t like me very much anyway.”

Ami looked at her for a moment, trying to think of what she meant by that. “Why does it look bad?”

“For me to be in your room?”

“Helping?”

“No, because of—” Mako shook her head, flushing, and mumbled, “Never mind. Just, just stay here.”

* * *

As she stepped quietly into the neat little room, Mako let out a breath. If Ami didn’t see anything wrong with being found in her room covered in mine-dirt with a stranger, she wasn’t going to try awkwardly explaining something like that before the sun was even up. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she said under her breath, looking around. “Come on, cob cat. This isn’t anything like your home.”

There was a skittering sound, but when Mako spun around there was nothing there. She got down on her hand and knees, squinting into the dark space under the dresser. A pair of bright orange eyes blinked back at her, pupils slit horizontally. The goblin cat hissed.

“I don’t much like you either, but you can’t be in here,” Mako told it matter-of-factly. “This isn’t your place.” The cat just stared back at her with disdain. _Not yours either_ , it seemed to say. “I know that,” she muttered. “I’m just helping. And that means getting you out of here. So come on, cat, come here.” She reached under the dresser, scooping it up in the crook of her elbow, and got to her feet again. “See, that wasn’t so b—”

And then the goblin cat _screamed_.

“Holy—” Mako sprinted for the open window, tossing the shrieking creature out in a panic just as Ami ran in, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was going to do that,” she tried, but Ami yanked her away from the window in a panic.

“Quick, quick, you’ve got to hide,” she hissed, pulling at her arm.

“Hide? Hide where?”

“I don’t know!”

Mako could hear the running footsteps by now, and panic stopped her heart for a split-second—no no no no no this wasn’t happening—she dove under the bed without thinking and heard the sound of Ami slamming the window shut again.

“What was that sound?” came an exclamation from the doorway. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes, yes, everything is fine!” Mako held her breath as Ami hurried around to stand in front of where she was. “Um, it was just, something—at the window, something was at the window is all.”

“Was that noise _you_ , child?”

“Er… yes. Yes. It’s alright now, really, I was just, um, taken aback a bit.”

“You’re quite sure?” The lady in brown didn’t sound like she believed her, and Mako couldn’t really blame her; that was not a sound Ami even seemed capable of making. “You’re not hurt at all? Come here, let me see—good heavens, girl, you’re positively filthy! Have you been wandering in your sleep again?”

“No! No, I haven’t, it’s… it’s just the lighting, I’m not—why would—I’m fine, really. Please, I’d like to try to get back to sleep if that’s alright?” Mako winced. She was floundering, and the lady in brown couldn’t possibly be convinced.

“…I see. Perhaps in another hour or two you will have a more sufficient explanation.”

“Yes, of course, absolutely, I will tell you whatever you like over breakfast,” Ami hurried, and Mako saw her trying to usher the lady in brown out the door. The lock clicked shut behind her; there was silence for a moment, and then a pair of worried blue eyes looking back at her. “I’m sorry, are you alright?”

Clearing her throat and crawling awkwardly out from underneath the bed, she sat up. “Yeah, I’m good,” she rubbed at her cheek. “I’m gonna have to climb out the window to get out though. Is she… I mean, will she hear it open?”

Ami set her jaw. “Not if we’re quick about it. You promise you’ll make it back home okay?”

“Promise,” Mako laughed, shaking her head. If she hadn’t needed to make a quick getaway, and if it wasn’t out of line, she could have teased her, tried to make her laugh—she probably had the sweetest laugh, Mako thought—but it _was_ out of line, and she _did_ need to go, so she only smiled and waited for Ami to open the window. As she hoisted herself out, she lifted a hand to her head, tipping an imaginary cap with a grin.

Ami did laugh then, short and clear, then clapped a hand over her mouth. But Mako had heard, and her grin widened. She was right.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time the first snow fell, Ami had settled into a new routine. Every other night, she climbed the stairs to the third floor that didn’t exist, spending hours listening to her friend tell stories—about a man who so loved the moon he waxed and waned with it, about a princess turned into a raven by night, about a girl who tossed the sun into the sky every morning and ran to see it safely to the other side of the world. Her friend never answered questions about the goblins anymore, only shrugged and responded vaguely. _You’ll see. Oh, you know that one, or you will, anyway. Why don’t you ask the very yes girl?_

She did ask, sometimes. She saw Mako most mornings, coming back from the mine and tapping softly at the window. Even when she wasn’t sure of the answer (“well, I’ve never really stopped to see if they all have ears, no”) she was always sure to have it the next time (“they do, but they don’t seem to work very well if you ask me”). To make up for what Ami thought must have been a terribly inconvenient detour every morning, she always made sure to save something from breakfast for her—a plate of biscuits, an egg, a handful of bacon. No matter what it was, Mako always lit up and took it, and that made her feel a little better about keeping her from going straight home.

“You know,” Mako said around a mouthful of apple one morning, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her too-short coat, “I don’t want to offend you or anything, but… this friend of yours, is she, you know. Real?”

Ami bounced on her toes and leaned on the windowsill. “Of course she is. She gave me this, and it’s real, isn’t it?” She held out her hand, the silver ring catching glints of the sunrise.

“Gave you—” Mako turned away in a fit of coughing suddenly, and when she was through she shoved the rest of the apple into the pocket of her overalls. “Uh,” she gave a nervous laugh, “I, uh, have to, um, go now. I’m really sorry, I mean—” She dropped into half a curtsy, half a bow, and before Ami could ask what was wrong, she was gone.

It was another sixteen days before she saw her again. That was when the snow fell.

* * *

Mako, meanwhile, was busy. She’d lost her pickax in her brief stint in goblin jail, as she had come to think of it, which admittedly made it hard to keep working. Buying a new one—and some other supplies she’d decided were necessary for further goblin-spying—had set her back on her new coat fund, but she told herself it was important. Now that they had caught her once, they were much more alert, and their guards were set up all throughout the tunnels. They weren’t as bright as their superiors, though, which was a stroke of luck; they were always stationed in exactly the same places and never moved from those stations. Ami’s thread had given her the idea to use some of her old twine to look for new places to eavesdrop on the cobs without getting lost. She would tie the twine to an outcropping of rock in a familiar part of the tunnels, then unwind it carefully as she wandered.

The mornings headed home were her favorite parts, though. At first she’d been worried about waking Ami up, but she always seemed to be awake and alert whenever Mako showed up, tapping lightly on the windowpane, despite the early hours. “Don’t you sleep?” she’d asked once, only half-joking.

Ami had just looked at her, puzzled. “Well, yes. Don’t you?”

“During the day now. I’m starting to feel like a cob myself kinda.” Her voice had dissolved into awkward, self-deprecating laughter that faded when Ami leaned across the windowsill to touch her arm worriedly.

“You’re not,” she’d said, and she’d been so earnest about it that Mako almost felt bad for making the joke at all. “You’re not like them, Mako, you’re good and kind and—and much better than a goblin—at least the average goblin assuming some dissonance, there’s always a few dissenters in any given society—”

She laughed, raising an eyebrow. “Alright, so I’m better than the average goblin. Thanks.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Ami started, already reddening, but Mako reached out to tuck her hair carefully behind her ear, and she stopped.

“I know what you meant,” Mako said softly.

After that the air was always a little different between them. She found herself unable to stop grinning her whole walk home every morning, still thinking about something Ami had said, or her smile, or how she’d leaned on the windowsill to whisper, or, or, or…

She told her about her nameless friend, impossible, absurd things like that she’d spent years spinning spider’s thread or that her fireplace was really a vase, and listened intently to everything Mako told her about what she’d learned from the cobs. Mako had spent the better part of one night working up the nerve to kiss her cheek goodbye when she finally asked if this friend was a real person or whether she might be a dream.

And then Ami showed her the ring, and air didn’t exist anymore because she had _actually thought_ that maybe she—she had hoped that maybe—she’d daydreamed, or night-dreamed, in the dark of the goblin-tunnels—and it all made sense now because using roses as firewood or spinning spider’s thread were exactly the kinds of odd extravagant things a royal from across the mountains would do, how could she have been so _stupid_ —

Mako didn’t go back after that. She’d let herself think too much about things she shouldn’t have to be able to pretend she’d never thought at all. Instead she threw herself into the work in the mines, and just over two weeks later it paid off.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” the queen huffed as she paced the royal bedchamber. Mako squinted through the crack in the wall and shifted on her knees. “All this effort and it isn’t even guaranteed that the sun-woman is the correct one?”

The king patted her flat cheek with a three-fingered hand. “My dear, it may not be guaranteed, but it is almost certain. You know our scouts have been doing their duty, and those that return tonight will bring the final indicator.”

“If she isn’t, I say we resort to the secondary plan.” She sniffed and sat at the end of the great bed, disdainful. “Our son cannot marry outside of his lineage _and_ his heritage. I won’t have it. Just because he takes after you, with your unhealthy interest in sun-women—”

“Now, now, only in my younger years,” the king soothed. “You know I love you deeply and utterly, my darling. Besides, indulging him here will allow us all to reap the benefits at least until her death, which is potentially seventy years yet.”

“Scarcely time at all.”

“Not to the sun-people, remember. By then a new generation will have arisen among them, and by then it may be that we will have no need of leverage to keep them subdued,” he pointed out. When the queen only sulked, the king turned to call for the prince. “Othtar! Have the scouts returned yet?”

The prince scampered in from another chamber, the nostrils of his pig’s nose flaring and his teeth bared in a frightening grin. “One has.”

“And?”

“She’s talking to herself again, in the empty room.” He licked his lips. “Same as every night. Is it going to be tomorrow?”

“Yes, it will.” The king blinked slowly, thoughtful, and said, “Preparations for your wedding are already in order. Have you cleaned your room?”

“Of course I have,” Prince Othtar said reproachfully, then gave a horrible giggle that made Mako’s mouth go dry. “We’ll have to solve the issue of her toes first, won’t we? I won’t be able to stomach touching her before then.”

Solve the issue of— _touching_ —? Mako bit down on the inside of her cheek and tried to block out the thought of the prince of the cobs ever touching some poor girl.

The queen sighed, smoothing out the ruffles in her immense skirts. “Oh, please, don’t cut them off with the kitchen set; there will be _such_ a mess.”

“I wasn’t going to cut them off,” said Prince Othtar, sounding offended, “I mean to fix them so she’ll have proper feet, like King-Papa did, by peeling out the skin between them and binding them together.” He made that horrible gurgling chortle sound again, and Mako gagged.

“Well, try to keep it down,” the queen waved a hand. “Give her something to bite down on or she’ll make a terrible racket.”

“Oh, but Queen-Mama,” complained the prince of the cobs. “I’ve never heard a princess scream before.”

_Never heard a—_? Mako felt herself go cold. Had her heartbeat always been this loud? She couldn’t remember. Maybe she’d misheard and he’d said something totally different, something that didn’t involve Ami, she thought wildly, but they kept saying it.

“Don’t mind her,” the king shook his heavy head. “No one was bothered by the veritable uproar _my_ sun-woman made; your princess will be no different.”

“ _My_ princess talks to herself,” Prince Othtar grumbled.

The queen sniffed. “Better herself than a miner.”

That was enough. Forgetting her resolution to stay away and mope by herself, Mako scrambled to her feet and followed her twine back to the starting point, running for the exit. She had to tell someone—she had to warn them, and maybe the lady in brown could get Ami somewhere safe, she thought.

She catapulted out of the mine and half-tripped down the mountain with the sunrise at her heels, crashing blindly through the trees, and she had almost made it to the house when one of the rocks in the path stood up and slammed into her gut.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mouse these last two chapters prove you don't know anything about how head injuries work"  
> k true but for purposes of me writing this last spring, delirious and trying not to think about finals: m a g i c.

In retrospect, after everything was over and she was telling the story, Mako would mutter that yes, she probably should have recalled the cobs’ scouts before barreling recklessly down the mountain, and yes, she probably should have recognized that there wasn’t usually a cob-sized boulder right in front of the door, but she wasn’t thinking of that now, and in her defense it was early morning and not night, and she couldn’t have been expected to know that the scouts don’t mind the sunlight as much as the rest. What she was thinking was more along the lines of _what the hell was that_ , followed by unconsciousness as she crashed headfirst into the door.

She woke an undeterminable time later, half-aware of being somewhere unbelievably soft and thinking she’d died and was on a cloud, and half-worrying about the silvery creature hovering over her. “Hello,” smiled the woman, looking now older, now younger. Mako shut her eyes again and tried to stop her head spinning. “You’re the very yes girl, aren’t you?”

“What,” she croaked, though it came out more like, “whg.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” the woman said cheerfully. “And I do mean a lot, a very lot. Oh, you really _do_ have the most charming freckles! I wasn’t really sure whether that was just one of those things that get said, although I think the way she said it was more of a sigh—oh, no, no, it’s alright, just lie still. You hit your head really hard, I think. But it’s okay, I’m helping. Do you want anything right now?”

Furrowing her brow in concentration, Mako wet her lips. She had something to say. Something important— “Ami,” she blurted, sitting up abruptly and nearly blacking out again. “Ami!”

“Aww… that’s very sweet of you.” The woman patted her head. “I said to lie still. And I’m really sorry, she’s not here right now. You’ll go and get her though, won’t you?”

“I’m… I’m too late?” She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, frustration clumping in the back of her throat. “I can’t be, I came as soon as I found out! They weren’t going to do anything until tomorrow night!”

“Well, you aren’t too late yet, but you will be if you don’t wake up right now, which you won’t, because _someone_ hasn’t been getting enough sleep lately, which is _silly_ because sleeping is so _good_ ,” the woman said, patting her head again. “Ooo, your hair is very soft, did you know?”

“I—what—that doesn’t _matter_ —what do you mean if I don’t wake up right now?” Mako looked up at the stranger, dropping her hands into her lap even as her fingers curled into fists. “Am I dreaming? Who are you?”

“I’m a friend! And yes. Only a little bit though,” she assured her. “I just thought it would be easier to talk to you if I was here too. Oops—there went your window. It’s okay though, I didn’t come to wake you up because that wasn’t ever supposed to happen. At least I think that’s what I was told.” The woman checked a silver pocket-watch Mako was sure she hadn’t been holding a moment ago and nodded. “Right! So yes. I came to tell you that you’ll need to take the ring I gave her with you.”

“That was you?” Mako looked at her a bit more intently now. She did look royal, and she was definitely pretty, and didn’t look like she’d ever spent a day of her life in a mine. “You’re her… friend?”

She smiled. “I’m everyone’s friend.” When Mako didn’t seem convinced, she sat beside her and poked her forehead. “Even yours!”

“…I don’t even know your name?”

“That’s okay!” She grew serious suddenly. “But you must promise you’ll find it and take it. You’ll do that, right? It’s very important.”

Mako looked at her, feeling drained. “Yeah. I can do that. Can I ask why… why it’s so important?”

“Because,” the woman said, tilting her head, “it’s got the thread. Follow it and don’t turn back, and it will take you where you need to go.” She stood, placing both hands on Mako’s shoulders, and kissed her forehead. “You’re going to wake up soon. Don’t forget, okay? Don’t forget!”

The last word was still fading when Mako’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself on a narrow bed in a cramped little room. Outside, the lady in brown was crying.

* * *

Things were going very differently on Ami’s end. She had been coming down from visiting her friend when Mako slammed into the front door, and the sound startled a yelp out of her, which had the housekeeper bustling in quicker than the door shaking had. “Oh, princess!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing up? Away from the door, I’ll see to it.”

Then the housekeeper had opened the door, and Mako had collapsed on the floor, and Ami had only just hurried to check where she had hit her head when the nurse arrived in a panicked flurry, demanding that they shut the door back immediately. The housekeeper obliged; she was not quick enough, though, to keep Ami from seeing an oddly-shaped boulder turn its head and blink, bright-eyed and sharp-toothed.

“What,” the nurse demanded, hands on the belt of her robe, “is happening here?”

Ami carefully dabbed at a gash that ran from Mako’s temple up across her forehead, pressing her lips together in a thin line. “Well, _I_ don’t really know, but if someone could bring me a rag and some warm water we could clean her up, and maybe you can ask her when she wakes up.” The housekeeper hurried off with a single, sharp nod.

“It isn’t safe to be so close to the door—”

“Then help me move her. Gently—look, her head’s—” With a little huff, she slid her arms under Mako’s, gingerly balancing the other girl’s head on her shoulder and standing as the nurse lifted her legs.

The housekeeper returned and, seeing what they were trying to do, said, “You can put her in my room for the time being. Don’t worry, love, we’ll see to it she’s alright.”

“I’m not—I’m not worried,” Ami insisted, which wasn’t true. Mako hadn’t been by in a little more than two weeks, and she’d never come to the door. She’d also never been chased by something that smiled like it knew more than it should, as far as Ami was aware. And whatever it was had _hurt_ her. She hadn’t seen a goblin when she had followed the thread last, but she thought that if she had, it would have had to have looked very much like the thing outside.

She couldn’t go back to bed, not _now_ , though they tried to convince her she ought to; instead she stayed by Mako and worried, twisting the silver ring around and around her finger until it started to hurt. She tugged it off and set it absently on the nightstand. The sun rose, and the cook brought in a little plate of breakfast, but Mako didn’t wake up. She didn’t wake up when the clock tower in the village in the valley chimed noon, very faintly, or when the housekeeper stopped by to find Ami asleep against the wall by the bed, or when the nurse came to wake her and try to convince her to eat something, or even when she went to find the housekeeper and came back to switch out the old rag on her head for a clean one, fingers brushing tentatively through her thick hair.

“It’s just me,” Ami whispered, “if you don’t want to see anybody else. I haven’t… I didn’t tell them anything.” She waited, but there was no response. She didn’t know what she had been expecting. “Why haven’t you been coming by anymore? It’s… I mean, it isn’t _lonely_ , because—because I’m not alone, I have—I have people. Only it’s different, talking to you. My friend’s stories are nice, but yours are… real. Like you. She’s real, too, but not in the whole sense of the word, I think; she doesn’t always seem quite like she’s meant to be here. I’ve asked about it, but she never answers.” She pressed her palm lightly to Mako’s cheek. “You’re feverish still,” she chided softly. “See, this would be easier if you were awake, because then you could eat something to help with that.” She fell silent then, thoughts wandering.

The nurse knocked at the door. “Child,” she said as she leaned in, “it’s nearly sundown. Let the housekeeper take care of her. You’ve done enough.”

Ami tilted her head, still lost in thought, her voice sounding very far away even to her own ears. “Have I?”

“Yes. You’ve done more than enough. Please, go to bed. It will be alright.”

She got to her feet, hesitating before leaning over to carefully tuck a strand of loose red-brown hair behind Mako’s ear. “You’ll come and get me if—”

“—if anything happens, yes,” the nurse nodded.

Satisfied, Ami left the housekeeper’s room to return to her own. Mako would be alright, she told herself as she poured a glass of water and sat on the edge of her bed, fingertips tapping nervously at the glass; whatever reason the goblins had for following her, they’d never been able to come inside before. She thought it was because of the lights—there was always a light on somewhere, and it made sense for their eyes to be sensitive to light since they were nocturnal. With this in mind, she set down the glass and lit the lamp on the nightstand, just in case.

The _scritch-scritch-scritch_ under the floorboards woke her before she’d even realized she had fallen asleep. The sounds were too heavy and numerous to be mice or rats. Ami sat up, suddenly wide awake. The cellar. Had they dug their way in—?

Wood splintered down the hall. The nurse screamed, and a sound bubbled up to drown her out, something like laughter but full of mud and rocks and sharp edges, and Ami yanked open the drawer of her nightstand to scrabble for her sharpest pencil.

Her door swung open more slowly than she’d expected, and a line of pale grey creatures came filing in, looking more like a child’s drawings than real human people. The first was taller than she was and wore a bright red dress and shoes made of stone, and when she gripped her pencil tighter and backed up, the goblin queen smiled. “Not much of a princess, are you?”

“Have you hurt anyone else yet?” Before any of them could answer, one of the smaller ones skittered around the queen and leapt for her with a snarl. Ami ducked, but it slammed her to the floor. It tittered and yanked at a fistful of her hair. Gritting her teeth, she stabbed at its face until her pencil broke off and something that burned her spurt from its eye. It bolted, howling, as the others laughed. She wiped at her face, getting shakily to her feet, and repeated herself. “Have you hurt anyone else yet?”

“Would you like us to?” the queen smiled. Her four teeth glinted unnervingly.

She counted. There were ten behind the queen, and she could hear more outside the room. “No. No, I would like you to leave them alone. Please.” Ami stood a little straighter and dug her fingernails into her palms. “What is it you’re here for?”

“Only you,” said the queen, clicking her tongue. “And if you don’t want to bring any of these others, it would be best for us to leave now.”

There were thirteen behind the queen, and Ami realized very suddenly that she didn’t have her ring with the thread. Her shoulders dropped.

The queen smiled.


	11. Chapter 11

“Where is she?” Mako staggered out of the cramped room, tripping on the sheet and grabbing onto the doorframe. The lady in brown looked up from where she was huddled on the floor, cheeks stained with tears, looking at a loss. “Where is she?” Mako repeated herself urgently, hoarse. “Ami, where—where is she?” The lady in brown only shook her head. “Did they—” She stopped suddenly, remembering the strange silvery woman. “The ring!” She spun around and nearly collided with the wall.

The ring, the ring, the ring. There, on the table by the bed. What the hell. This wouldn’t fit on a normal person’s finger—no. Focus. _Focus_. What had she said? Find it, it’d have the magic thread or whatever, and that would help her find where they’d gone. Something like that.

She shoved it in her pocket and sat down very quickly, blinking away the blurry spots in her vision. That was… probably normal. Mako rubbed at her eyes and took a breath. She didn’t have _time_ to not be able to see straight; she had to find her—to find her, her, her _friend_ , who was missing and in trouble and. _And_ , Mako was going to punch every single ugly stupid cob right in the face because if they hurt her she—she—

Mako covered her ears. Where was that ringing coming from? No. Didn’t matter. Get to Ami.

“Hey!” She shut the door back behind her and pointed at the lady in brown, who blinked back at her, still silently teary-eyed. “You, you, you stay put and—and wait, because I’m going to,” she fumbled for the ring and found an impossibly fine strand of thread instead, “the hell? I mean no—no, I’m not—I’m not going to hell, I’m going to get Ami.”

“The _princess_ ,” croaked the lady in brown automatically.

Mako snorted, yanking her boots back on with one hand and keeping the other on the thread. “Yeah, well, fat lot of good your formality did when the cobs were here.” She swiped at her eyes again.

“I-I’ll come with you—”

“I don’t think so,” she scoffed. The thread went towards the door, so she followed it.

* * *

Her friend had said that the goblins were vain and easily flattered, so after they had shoved her into the room with the goblin prince (“Othtar, dear,” the queen had crowed) Ami hadn’t stopped talking. He seemed intrigued, but there was only so much she could say about the obviously superior structural integrity of goblin architecture, and she still hadn’t come up with anything directly flattering that wouldn’t make her voice squeak nervously.

“…which is why really we ought to use more arches in our own architecture, I think,” she said, wetting her lips and trying not to think of how dry her mouth was getting. “Have you—um—have you seen much—many of the, the buildings aboveground?”

The goblin prince hadn’t stopped grinning unnervingly this entire time. “Is this what you talk to yourself about?”

“What I—what?” She backed into the wall, scraping her heels on the floor. “…what?”

“When you’re up in the tower all night.” He ran his tongue across his teeth. The fact that he had several more teeth than his mother did not escape her notice. “When you’re talking to yourself. Do you always talk about _buildings_?”

“I don’t—I don’t—I don’t talk to myself?” Her voice was getting higher. Ami couldn’t think of anything vaguely flattering to say to distract him.

Othtar lifted his thinning eyebrows. “Don’t you?”

It had been three hours. She cleared her throat and tugged nervously at her collar. “Tha-at’s not really relevant whydon’twetalkaboutyou?” The goblins would be going to bed, as a whole, around sunrise; if she could just keep him distracted until then, she had at least three things she could use: he was only one goblin and not that much bigger than she was, Mako had said their feet were their weakest physical point, and they were probably averse to off-key singing even more than anything that sounded nice.

“About me…?” He sounded more interested in that than in whatever he kept fiddling with, which looked more like something sharp than not, so Ami stared at the ceiling and tried not to think of the glass of water she’d left on the nightstand.

“Y-es. You have—eyes? Which are, er, nice.”

He giggled, sounding like a sink drain clogged with muck. She hoped morning was soon.

* * *

Mako had blinked more times during this stupid following-the-thread business than she had in her entire life, she was sure, and that was mostly because things kept getting blurry when they had no business being blurry. And she kept going back and forth between wishing she’d thought to ask the lady in brown for something to eat and not being able to think about food without gagging. _And_ she kept worrying that this thread was going to break. It was so thin; what if she accidentally leaned into it and it snapped?

She pushed it down and waited for a moment. It didn’t snap.

This was not the way she usually went. She’d passed the entrance to the mine ages ago, and it was still taking her up the mountain, where the air was thinner, and therefore harder to breathe, and therefore not helping. Mako stopped, leaning heavily against a bare pine, trying to catch her breath.

She’d never been this high before. Far, far below, the valley sprawled out in specks of indigo and lavender. The lights of the house she’d left however many hours ago looked no bigger than fireflies. Over the horizon, looking the same distance away as the valley somehow, the sun was beginning to rise.

The thread led her further around the mountain until she could hear something roaring below. Mako leaned out a little ways—a waterfall, she realized, emptying into the same lake the river that ran under the mine did. If it hadn’t been blurring in and out, she thought it could have been a pretty view. Except that it was blurring and it shouldn’t have been. She blinked a few more times.

Back to the thread. Stay on task. She didn’t know how much time she had; what if they’d already hurt her? She thought of the cob prince’s leering grin and whining voice. She thought of Ami’s soft laugh, clear and smooth as the waterfall below, and she squinted at the thread. “You better have a sense of good timing, too.”

Predictably, the thread did not respond.

Instead it wound its way into a crevice at last and led her through a tunnel. Mako dropped to her hands and knees, biting her tongue when the passage grew narrower and slanted downwards, the walls scraping at her shoulders and elbows. It felt like she’d been crawling too long when a flicker of light appeared around a corner. It glimmered off the silver thread, which had, worryingly, started to vibrate. Or maybe that was just Mako. It was getting hard to tell.

Voices. She stiffened and skidded a little ways down the tunnel. “…doesn’t really do anything. You can’t fool me like that. I’m not _stupid_.”

“Of course you aren’t, you’re very smart, I didn’t mean to imply—but look, according to Schrodinger like I’ve just explained, you can’t know that I’m wrong.”

“Well, I can’t know that you’re right either, see.” The cob prince sniffed. “It’s not that you made a bad effort, but I do have to do it the right way. You understand.”

The light was brighter here. Mako stopped when the thread turned sharply downwards, squinting down into what must have been part of the royal rooms. There was the cob prince, fiddling with a sharp-looking strange tool, and—there. Ami. “It’s at least worth a try,” she was saying, voice higher than Mako remembered ever hearing. “Surely as a reasonable person—”

_THUD_.

She’d given up on trying for stealth. Mako stood up, dusted herself off, and looked down at the dazed prince with a scowl. “This is for… I don’t know, just because.” She swiped the crown off his head and turned to Ami, who was staring at her, wide-eyed. “Your, um, your thread brought me here. Your friend sent me.” The last word ended in a startled _oof_ as Ami threw herself at her.

“I was—I was—I had a plan, but I like this one better.” She let go almost as quickly as she had lunged forward and looked around, puzzled. “Where is the thread?”

“It’s right heeeeeeeeere what the hell you’re _bleeding_ —” Mako grabbed her worriedly by the shoulders, checking her over. “What did they—where—”

Ami looked down at herself, seeming surprised. “Oh! No, no, it’s not mine, it’s okay! This is yours,” she pointed to the ruddy stains on her sleeves, “and, um, these are… there was an incident.” She paused. “It was a little bit messy, but I’m alright, really!”

“An incident?” Mako rubbed at her eyes, trying to will away the returning blur. “What—what—what happened?”

“I’ll explain once we’re out of here, I promise, but—”

She realized suddenly she was still standing on top of the cob prince, who hadn’t so much as grunted. “Oh. Oh! Right! Yeah, yeah, let’s get out of here.” Mako tapped at the thread. “There’s the, um, your friend’s… thing. Thread.” Ami reached for it. When she touched it, relief flooded her face, and Mako realized she couldn’t see it anymore.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, thank you—” And then she was tugging at Mako’s hand, darting after the invisible thread.

It took them through the king and queen’s bedroom, and Mako stopped her with a sudden thought. Ami waited, nervous and jittery, while she tiptoed to the royal bed and carefully pulled the queen’s shoe from her foot. “Well, damn,” she whispered. “She’s got _toes_.” She started to pull the other off too, but there was a sudden jolt, and Mako found herself staring into a pair of very close cob eyes. “Um,” she said. “Excuse us, we were just, uh, leaving?”

* * *

The thread was singing under her fingers as she dropped down through the hole in the ground, out of breath from running and landing with a small splash in water that almost reached the hemline of her nightdress, halfway up her shins. “It goes this way,” Ami said, looking up where Mako was still warily eyeing the hole and nervously tap-tap-tapping her fingertips against the sides of it. “It isn’t that bad, see? I made it okay.”

“Yeah, but am I gonna fit through here?”

“It’s big enough for a person.” She waved. “Obviously.”

Mako snorted, sitting and dangling both legs down, jittery. “Maybe for you, but you’re a tiny little strip of nothing—no offense, princess, I’m just… not.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve noti—” She bit herself off, reddening, and hoped Mako hadn’t heard that bit. “A-anyway you should be able to make it,” Ami hurried.

“Well, here goes then.” Mako scooted off the edge—

—and then with a yell dangled overhead, kicking out wildly.

“Mako?!”

“Get off!” she was shouting at someone, and Ami scrambled to duck out of the way of her steel-toed boots. “I said get _off_ , you rotten filthy—”

There was a hiss, and a snap, and then a second snap, and then Mako came tumbling down headfirst into the water, leaving her sooty overalls in a pale grey fist. She leapt to her feet, sopping wet and absolutely bare-legged, and thrust out a hand. “We have to go, right now—Ami?” Ami shook herself and snapped her mouth shut.

“Yes! Yes, right, right, leaving,” she heard herself babble as she grabbed her hand and reached for the thread again. “What about your—?”

Mako didn’t answer, just pointed. “Does it say that way?”

“It doesn’t _say_ anything, technically,” she started.

“No time for technicalities! Is that the way?” When she nodded, Mako took off, yanking her along.

“Wait, Mako,” she yelped the third time she stumbled in as many seconds, “I can’t go that fast and keep track of the thread!” The words had barely left her mouth before Mako skidded to a halt and turned to scoop her up.

“Tell me which way to go,” she said. “And quick, they aren’t real happy with us right now.”

Hooking one arm around her neck, Ami felt for the thread with her other hand, leaning awkwardly, but Mako didn’t let go, just took off again, turning when she—“Left!”—said, skidding around corners haphazardly as the howling behind them built, until—“Right, right, now!”—they burst out of the mountain with the river and went over the waterfall, screaming, and Ami lost the thread.


End file.
